Leon Kilat ::: The Cybercafe Experiments » Mobile

Why CDR King should talk to this Smart SWEEP team

Max Limpag — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 12:27:19 +0000

When was the last time you were in CDR King in SM City? How much of your time was wasted waiting for your turn? The last time I was in that branch is precisely that—the last time. I spent close to an hour waiting for my turn that I ultimately gave up. Yes, their products are cheaper, but you waste an hour of your time just to save a few pesos? I’ll reserve masochism for bulk purchases.

Waiting in line has got to be the blight of modern man’s existence. In the offices of Pag-ibig, SSS, LTO, NSO, you see people waiting in line for so long you’d worry about the national productivity. In medical clinics, healthy people get sick—and murderous—by the time doctors finally attend to them.

I do not have proof, only strong suspicion, but I think your blood pressure is directly proportional to the amount of time you spend in line. Take a BP monitor the next time you transact with a government agency and find out for yourself.

A better queuing system would do wonders to our health, sanity and national productivity. Wouldn’t it be great to get a priority number for a transaction and be notified when it’s your turn?

STUDENT PROJECT. Ateneo de Zamboanga University mentor Eugene Kanindot (left) explains the TimeFree system to Atty. Jane Paredes, senior manager of Smart public affairs Vis-Min. (SUN.STAR FOTO/MAX LIMPAG)

Joselle Macrohon, a student of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, saw the long lines in the school’s finance office and, instead of ranting or writing a column about it, decided a technical solution to the problem would make a good school project and entry to the Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (Sweep) Innovation and Excellence Award. The team came up with the TimeFree application to address that problem.

The system is simple and ingenious. You drop P5 into the TimeFree machine, enter your priority number, specify on which priority number you want to be alerted and then enter the phone number where you want alert text messages sent. After that, you can go somewhere else knowing that when it’s close to your turn, you’ll get a text message to alert you.

For example, you want to pay your utility bills and you get 235 as priority number. The tellers, however, are still attending to priority number 130. With TimeFree, you don’t have to wait inside the payment center until all the 104 people ahead of you are called. You can configure TimeFree to send you a text message when, for example, priority number 230 is called. When it’s your turn, the system will send you another text message.

TimeFree is customizable, said mentor Louie Gallardo. A company can, for example, deploy the system as an added customer service and do away with the coin slot so that its clients don’t have to pay for the alerts. TimeFree is also easy to deploy. Gallardo said they can easily connect it to existing ticketing systems.

The TimeFree protoype that the student group produced will be used by the Ateneo de Zamboanga’s finance office after the contest.

While TimeFree was not among the top three winners of the Sweep Innovation and Excellence Awards, I think the application has the most potential to be actually deployed and used. I’ve covered Smart Sweep for four years but I couldn’t recall being as excited and as giddy as I was during the demo of mentor Eugene Kanindot of Ateneo de Zamboanga.

Reformed Sony Ericsson fan boy starts the year right with a Nokia

Max Limpag — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 15:29:28 +0000

One of the things I did just as 2009 ended was to get a new phone. But months before the actual purchase, I had already decided on a brand and line—the Nokia E series.

After years of using Sony Ericsson phones—starting with the lethal-looking Ericsson R320—I decided early last year to switch to Nokia.

The decision to leave Sony Ericsson was spurred by two things: 1.) I felt that SonyEricsson abandoned its users of the UIQ platform (the system that ran in the P800/P900 and P1) and 2.) the company insists on using proprietary connectors for such things as headphones instead of using standard interfaces like 3.5 mm audio jacks.

I also came to love Nokia units after testing a few of its units. I particularly liked the Nokia E71 and had decided by April to buy the latest unit in the E series line in December.

NOKIA E63. For just P11,000, you get a phone that excels in messaging—SMS, e-mail, IM and Web connectivity.

Then, I got hooked on running.

My priorities shifted and I found myself choosing to spend more on running-related gear—shoes, apparel, GPS watches—and running books than on a phone.

I wanted the best phone I could get for the lowest price possible.

The E63 is that phone.

For about P11,000, the E63 provides me with all the crucial mobile tools I need to stay connected anywhere—e-mail, instant messaging and Internet browsing via 3G and Wi-Fi.

The E63 is a cheaper version of the E71. Unlike higher-end units such as the E71 and E72, the E63 does not have HSPA connectivity. This is fine with me because whenever I need to do something online, I am usually near a Wi-Fi hotspot.

If I needed high-speed mobile Internet access, I could just use Smart Bro on my Linux laptop. For most other mobile Internet tasks, I can live with a 3G connection.

The E63 is also a bit thicker than the E71, which, in my opinion, makes it easier to handle. The E63 also comes with a plastic casing, unlike the steel casing that comes with the heavier E71. The E63 also does not have GPS and does not come with a data cable.

But for the price difference—enough to buy a good pair of running shoes—the E63 stands out.

In the few weeks that I have been using the device, I found communicating not only easier but much more enjoyable in the E63. Nokia Messaging email, which comes installed in the device, is such an all-you-need-to-do-is-click easy mobile email solution. I bet even my father, a reluctant tech user, can set up his email on the phone using that software. For mobile browsing, social networking and chat, I installed my usual mobile phone software—Opera Mini for browsing, Fring for chat and Snaptu for updating Twitter and Facebook.

The E63 and the higher-end devices in its line gets messaging right.

Yes, the E63’s camera quality and its lack of a decent auto-focus may be atrocious but given the choice between a phone that gets messaging right and another mobile phone that either gets imaging or media playing right, I’d take the E63 anytime.

It got messaging absolutely right.

On the road but still “in the cloud”

Max Limpag — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 00:52:41 +0000

(This is my column for Sun.Star Cebu for tomorrow, Oct. 27)

Two days before I was to run in the Smart Subic International Marathon (SIM) 2009, I finally learned how to properly tie my shoes. It’s hilarious if it isn’t excruciating to have to bend to retie shoelaces that come undone after running several kilometers.

All my life, I have been apparently tying my shoelaces using a Granny Knot, which easily comes undone. I wouldn’t have known any better had I not started running. In longer runs, my shoelaces always come undone and I’d cringe in pain every time I had to bend and retie it.

It turned out that there’s a better way to tie your shoelaces to make sure that these do not come undone. The trick is to use a Reef Knot and a Runner’s World video shows you just how to do that.

TYING MY SHOE. Learning how to correctly tie my shoes using a Reef Knot, which doesn’t come undone, using a Runner’s World instructional video viewed through a Smart Bro USB modem connection.

But first, I had to make the Smart Bro USB modem work with Linux—specifically with Ubuntu 9.04 or the Jaunty Jackalope.

Making USB modems work with Linux, at least in my experience, can be such a pain in the knee. Almost always, you’d have to rely on hacks or unofficial packages and often, you’d still not be able to make it work. In the more than five times that I tried it, I was only able to make it run twice.

Ultimately, I gave up. I don’t go around that much anyway and wherever I may be, I’m usually within walking distance from a cafe or any other establishment that offers free Wi-Fi. Making the USB modems work wasn’t a life or death situation for me.

Well, that was then.

Days before I was to leave for Subic, however, I made a mental note to again look into making the Smart Bro USB modem work with my Linux laptop. I needed to be constantly online because most of the data that I need access to—from articles notes to my 21K training schedule—are on the Web or “in the cloud,” in tech industry parlance. I knew the hotels in Subic charged Lunarglides for their Wi-Fi connectivity and I wasn’t keen on paying that much for the access. I wanted to pay pasaload.

Having read somewhere that the newer models of the unit stood a better chance of working with Linux, I grabbed a colleague’s ZTE MF 627 HSPA USB modem before he could say “10K” and made a perfunctory search for possible solutions.

I spotted one in the Linux Diaries blog of Dax Solomon Umaming. His solution involved adding a repository in your Linux software sources, installing two packages and restarting the system with the Wi-Fi turned off.

I installed the packages before leaving for Subic and crossed my fingers I would be able to make it work. When I got there, I found that the hotel Wi-Fi still cost P100 an hour or P500 a day or a Lunarglide a week. I knew I had to make the Smart Bro USB modem work.

It turned out that I didn’t need to worry. I was able to use Smart Bro after setting the configuration variables Umaming already listed in his blog post.

And that’s how I learned to correctly tie my shoelaces, via an instructional video from Runner’s World viewed through a Smart Bro Internet connection. And it worked. When I tied my shoes using a Reef Knot, the laces didn’t come undone even when I ran several kilometers and even when I still used rounded shoelaces.

The connection was dependable and speedy and pretty soon, not only was I working and browsing as if I never left the Sun.Star Cebu office, I was already checking out a satellite map of my 10K route through Google Maps.

But old habits die hard. On the 10K race itself, I laced the right shoe correctly but inadvertently used a Granny Knot on the left pair. As expected, it came undone and in such a bad time—a few minutes after I had to stop to take a leak, blowing away my chances at setting a personal record.

Neither Linux, Smart Bro or even a Lunarglide could help it.

Smart offers unlimited calling within its network nationwide with Smartalk

Max Limpag — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 15:28:19 +0000

Smart Communications is offering its subscribers unlimited calling within its network through the Smartalk service, which will be available nationwide starting tomorrow, June 26.

Under the service, which was formally unveiled in Cebu yesterday, Smart subscribers can make unlimited calls to other users in its network using two subscription plans: Smartalk 100 and Smartalk 500.

SMARTALK LAUNCH. (From left) Atty. Maria Jane Paredes, Smart public affairs manager for Visayas and Mindanao, Danilo Mojica, head of Smart’s wireless consumer division, and Annie Naval, marketing group head, answer questions of reporters from Cebu and Mindanao during the launch of Smartalk in Cebu City.

Smartalk 100 offers 5 days of unlimited calls within the network for P100. Smartalk 500 offers 30 days of unlimited calling for P500. Subscribers can enroll into the plan either through conversion of their current load or by buying Smartalk loads from Smart retailers.

The service is also available to Smart post-paid users both as a P500 add-on to their monthly fee or through purchasing Smartalk 100 and 500 loads from retailers. Company officials said this is the first time that post-paid users can purchase packages from load retailers.

“This is best for post-paid subscribers who prefer to stay within their monthly service fee cap yet need to avail themselves of unlimited calling,” the company said in a statement.

To use the unlimited calling service, prepaid users have to dial *6400 plus the 11-digit number of the Smart subscriber. Smart post-paid users, however, do not need to add *6400 and can just directly dial the number. Annie Naval, head of Smart marketing, said they were working to simplify dialing for prepaid users.

Danilo Mojica, head of Smart’s Wireless Consumer Division, said the company ‘s network is efficient enough to take the increase in volume of calls expected with the promotion.

Mojica said the product was extensively tested in Cebu “against all parameters” and results “were very positive.” He said that in the three weeks of testing, they only had three complaints and these had nothing to do with network congestion.

Mojica also said their unlimited calls offer does not put a time limit on the calls.

“With this new service, Smart subscribers all over the country need only one phone, one SIM and one number to be able to make unlimited, crystal-clear calls to over 38 million Smart numbers anytime, anywhere,” Smart chief wireless advisor Orlando Vea said in a statement.

Sony Ericsson shows off Cyber-shot phones in smiles campaign

Max Limpag — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 10:33:30 +0000

Sony Ericsson is embarking on a national campaign to collect 1 million digital photos of people smiling andraise P1 million for the United Nations Children’s Fund or Unicef. For each smile Sony Ericsson photographs of people who visit their booths in SM malls all over the country, P1 will go to Unicef.

The campaign is done in partnership with nine SM Malls that will also be holding a contest among themselves on who could gather the most smiles. SM Prime Holdings vice president Marissa Fernan, who is a bit of a gadget nerd herself, is confident of Cebu’s chances to win the contest among SM Malls. You have until the end of this month to go to the Spread the Smiles booth in SM Cebu and have yourself photographed there.

If you give a P20 donation, you will be given a Digiprint photo printout, a spot on the Smile Wall and a raffle ticket to win a Sony Ericsson C510 Cyber-shot phone.

SMILE SHUTTER. Vince dela Cruz, Sony Ericsson product marketing manager, demonstrates how smiling can trigger the shutter of Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot phones during the launch of its Spread the Smiles campaign in Cebu.

The campaign is a good showcase for Sony Ericsson’s Cyber-shot product line. You can fault Sony Ericsson for several things—from its lackluster smartphone offerings to its infuriating connectors for its accessories—but when it comes to imaging, Sony Ericsson is among the mobile phone leaders.

The Spread the Smiles campaign quickly takes photos of smiles of mallgoers through the Smile Shutter function of Sony Ericsson’s Cybershot phones C510 and C905. The Smile Shutter is a nifty piece of technology that detects smiles of people in camera range and then takes photos.

By using a cameraphone with Smile Shutter, taking a photo of yourself just became easier. You no longer have to master that awkward twisting of the unit to put yourself into frame and then clicking on the camera button to take the photo. With Smile Shutter, you just have to smile to trigger the camera.

Of the units being showcased in the campaign, the C905 is the more formidable device. It is a whopping 8.1-megapixel phone with Xenon flash, auto focus with face detection, and image stabilizer.

Apart from its imaging capabilities, the C905 comes with what are now standard features of high-end mobile phones—Wi-Fi and HSPA connectivity, a built-in email client and global positioning system (GPS).

With GPS, you can geo-tag photos and use Wayfinder Navigator (the unit comes with a trial version) or Google Maps.

Globe offers unlimited calling to landlines with Globe DUO

Max Limpag — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:59:02 +0000

Globe launched in Cebu last week its Globe DUO service, a combination mobile and landline service that gives subscribers two numbers—a mobile phone number and a portable landline number—using just one subscriber identification module (SIM).

With Globe DUO, consumers get to make and receive unlimited calls to and from any landline number within a certain coverage area. Globe DUO subscribers can also make unlimited calls to other subscribers of the service.

The service is initially available for pospaid Globe subscribers in Manila and Cebu. Today, May 25, Globe will open the service for the first time to prepaid users. Globe Telecom Consumer Wireless Business Group head Ferdinand dela Cruz said they chose Cebu for today’s introduction of the service to prepaid use.

LANDLINE AND MOBILE PHONE. Globe Telecom Consumer Wireless Business Group head Ferdinand dela Cruz talks about Globe DUO during its launch in Cebu.

“Globe is breaking the barriers between mobile and landline by coming up with this revolutionary 2-in-1 service,” dela Cruz said during Thursday’s launch at the Waterfront Hotel in Lahug, Cebu City.

“Globe DUO is a testament of our commitment to continuously provide our customers with the latest wireless services in the world at the most affordable price and offer them every convenient means of connecting to one another,” Globe president and chief executive office Ernest Cu said in a press statement.

Globe DUO is the company’s answer to PLDT’s Landline Plus service. It is a virtual shot in the bow for what had been a long unchallenged innovative service.

With PLDT Landline Plus and Globe DUO, the word “landline” becomes an adjective merely for the way calls are charged and phone numbers are formatted. Because when you think about it, portable “landline” phones are really mobile phones.

To enroll with Globe DUO, postpaid users need to pay P399 for 30 days. This will be charged on top of their Globe monthly plan and comes with an initial 90-day subscription. If you already have a post-paid subscription with the company, you can just activate the Globe DUO service by texting DUO (area of service) ON to 8888.

If you’re a post-paid subscriber in Cebu, just send DUO CEB ON to 8888. The system will assist you in subscribing to the service. You will get an SMS message containing the terms and conditions of the service which you have to accept by sending yes as a reply.

After you accept the terms, you will then get a message that will contain your “landline” number. The service becomes immediately active and you can call and get calls from any landline number in Cebu, whether Globe or PLDT.

Dela Cruz said Globe invested on an advance call management platform to detect which type of call is being made. He also said Globe is upgrading its network capacity “ahead of demand.”

Prepaid users in Cebu can enroll themselves into Globe DUO by texting DUO CEB 125 or DUO CEB 350. The amounts are for the two prepaid subscription plans: P125 for five days and P350 for 14 days.

When I asked a Globe official why they didn’t have an option for monthly prepaid subscriptions, he said they are encouraging users to get a Globe postpaid plan so that they can enjoy freebies that come with their monthly subscriptions. With the service, Globe is apparently out to expand its subscriber base.

While it’s prepaid services may be more expensive than PLDT Landline Plus, which has a P300 monthly plan, Globe allows unlimited calling to landlines and other DUO users. In PLDT Landline Plus, you have to pay by the minute once you exceed your plan’s free allocation. And unlike PLDT Landline Plus, Globe DUO is just an add-on to your mobile phone subscription. You don’t need a separate SIM and phone for it.

One more reason to love Nokia: standard audio jacks

Max Limpag — Sun, 10 May 2009 19:03:08 +0000

(This is for my Sun.Star Cebu column on Tuesday, May 12, 2009)

Two Nokia phones I’ve recently tested steeled my conviction to transfer to the Finnish mobile phone manufacturer from Sony Ericsson, whose phones I’ve been using for at least a decade. The two units, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic and N96, have standard jacks for audio and video-out connections.

With standard audio jacks, you can use regular headphones, including those you buy for laptops or personal computers, with your mobile phone. Not only do you have more choices when it comes to the quality or design, you also have more options when it comes to the price.

With the current design of mobile phone accessories like earphones and external speakers, you are locked into the phone manufacturer’s usually expensive product offerings. The other option is to risk buying cheap knockoffs that at times conk out in less than a week.

USE REGULAR HEADPHONES. The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic has a standard audio jack and you can use any type of headphone with it. Above, a regular PC headphone works with the device.

These “original” accessories cost so much more than many branded earphones sold in gadget and computer shops. With standard audio jacks in phones, you can choose to buy these types of earphones instead. Most of these earphones, which cost less than “original” phone headsets, have excellent audio quality.

With the 5800 and N96, I was able to use my headphone of choice, the so-called circumaural headphones or those with earmuff designs, instead of the current fad, the earbuds. I used the headphones, bought for use with a laptop, both to listen to songs and talk—you just have to hold the phone like a walkie-talkie because while you are using the headphone to listen to the conversation, you need to use the phone’s built-in mic to talk.

Earmuff headphones are cooler, with its retro look, and more comfortable. Earbuds, on the other hand, may lead to hearing loss, according to a previous study.

I don’t know how hard it is from an engineering standpoint to use standard audio jacks as connectors for earphones but with Nokia’s move, there is a chance the other manufacturers will be spurred into following. Nokia isn’t the phone manufacturing leader for nothing.

In my extensive experience with Sony Ericsson, the audio connectors are among the first victims of wear and tear. After a year of extensive use of the headset that comes shipped with the phone, you start experiencing sporadic connectivity and sometimes the music—or worse, the conversation—gets cut off repeatedly and you have to wiggle the connecting points to recover the connection. You don’t have this problem with standard audio jacks.

What’s worse is that these connectors are also the ones used for power and you’d also have to wiggle the connectors when charging your phone.

I don’t know what spurred the company to take the design decision but it shows a lot of respect for standards and consumer choice. I’ve always thought how great it would be for phones to be engineered like personal computers, with standardized parts that you can interchange and upgrade.

That might be impossible but building on standard components like regular audio jacks is a good start. Soon, we can have standard ports for PC connectivity, such as mini-USB, or even power connections. That way, we can use interchangeable chargers or PC connectivity cables.

In the cloud? What if it all goes up in smoke? The case of my missing phone numbers

Max Limpag — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 16:50:04 +0000

LAST Thursday, I got the phone number of an elementary school friend I haven’t had contact with in more than a decade. After saving the contact info in the cellphone I am currently testing, a Nokia 5800, I immediately synchronized my phonebook with Zyb.

Zyb is a web-based service that stores your contact data. It has social networking features that plug into such sites as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.

But Zyb’s core function is to make sure you have an updated (and backed up) copy of all your contact details. It is a very useful service especially when you get a new phone or use several units.

To make sure you always have the latest contact details of people, Zyb regularly reminds you to synchronize your phone book with its servers.

SYNCHRONIZING WITH ZYB. Zyb holds the latest copy of my phone contacts. The service regularly reminds you to synchronize your phonebook to make sure you have the latest copy of your phone contacts.

If you change your phone number, you don’t even have to give your new contact details to your contacts who also use Zyb. Your number will be automatically updated the next time they synchronize their phonebooks.

I’ve been using Zyb for close to three years and have become dependent on it. In all those years, I’ve never encountered major problems.

Until last Thursday.

The first indication of a problem was when I received a text message from an unlisted number asking me where I was and whether I wanted to go to Makati. I set it aside while working on an article for my section when I again received another text from the same number asking about the kids. Now, I’m pretty sure I only had kids with one woman so I knew something was wrong.

It was at this point that I checked the contacts menu to find that of my more than 150 phone contacts, only nine were left. These nine phone contacts were those that I saved in the past two weeks.

MISSING CONTACTS. Last Thursday, 152 of my phone contacts ended up getting deleted during a synchronization with Zyb. I was able to recover the phone numbers later.

With panic starting to set in, I decided to try synchronizing with Zyb again. After the second, third and succeeding attempts at synchronization, my phonebook still only had nine contacts and I was in full-blown panic mode. It’s bad enough to deal with such a technical snafu, it’s worse to do it on the road.

Zyb prides itself with keeping your data safe and I know I’d be able to restore all my contacts. I just wasn’t sure when and whether I could do it while on vacation.

Not knowing what else to do, I decided to check on my “Deleted contacts.” It was there that I found out that while synchronizing the 5800’s phonebook with Zyb, 152 of my phone contacts were deleted. It was a good thing the deletion wasn’t permit.

I just checked on the phone contacts I wanted to recover and after synchronizing my phone again, all my contacts were restored to my phonebook.

While everything ended well, the scare taught me to be wary of keeping data on “the cloud,” the metaphorical term for Internet-based services and data storage.

It’s not as if I did not have a previous warning.

In 2007, I had a lot of problems accessing key data and using online services when it took Globelines more than a month to restore Internet service at my home after that Taiwan quake. The service was cut off at the height of my experiment to make the Internet—The Network—my computer. The service cutoff was a very painful and costly lesson.

I have since transferred to a better Internet service provider and weaned myself from my dependence on online services. But Zyb was something I never thought would fail me. To be fair, it didn’t fail me last Thursday because I was still able to recover my contacts but it did give me a scare.

I’m buying a Rolodex.

Why I’m leaving Sony Ericsson for Nokia

Max Limpag — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 10:00:12 +0000

Like Saul, my conversion happened on the road.

I was on my way to a meeting and needed to constantly check my e-mail as well as keep my instant messaging (IM) accounts online when it hit me, like the Biblical blinding light, that the Nokia E71 is the best mobile Internet device I’ve used.

It isn’t just the ease by which the device is able to use multiple Internet access points—from various wi-fi hot spots with different security settings to HSPA —it is also the dependability of the device in keeping that connection.

In the two weeks that I was asked to test an E71 review unit, I’ve never experienced having difficulty going online and staying there.

When I was asked by Nokia to test the E71, I was a rabid Sony Ericsson fan boy. But a decade of using Sony Ericsson phones was no match with just a fortnight with the E71. By the end of the test, I had decided to shift to an Eseries device later this year.

Adjustments

The biggest adjustment when shifting phone brands is the keypad layout. The adjustment is made harder when shifting from the regular keypad to a full QWERTY.

But I came to the E71 from the Sony Ericsson P1i and the keypad adjustment was very minimal. It was, in fact, an improvement and quite unlike my initial adjustment from the K750i to the P1i, whose rocking dual QWERTY keypad takes a long time to get used to.

Searching for contacts to insert into messages is also such a user-friendly experience with the E71 and its S60 relatives compared to the annoying way searching names is done in the P1i and its UIQ 3 siblings, a dying and orphaned brood of a handful of mainly Sony Ericsson smartphones.

The P1i takes the first and last names as a single string and when you start typing a contact’s name, it searches for it last name first. This makes texting cumbersome and slow, especially when you are sending a message to someone who shares a last name with several of your contacts (typically a relative).

There’s no such nonsense in the E71.

My initial impression was that the E71, albeit thinner than most phones, was too wide to be handy. It was an impression that was immediately debunked hours after using the device. You eventually get used to its flatness.

The phone comes with integrated assisted GPS and Nokia Maps. I wasn’t able play with it but I did install my preferred Google Maps and My Location worked with it. The feature plots your location on the map and indicates it with a blue dot. It’s listed to work with Google Latitude, although the service isn’t available in the Philippines just yet.

The phone also comes with an integrated 3.2 megapixel camera. It has an FM radio, Bluetooth connectivity and all the features you’d expect from a relatively modern multi-media phone.

But you don’t buy the phone for its camera are any of these extras. You buy an E71 because, save possibly for the Blackberry, it is the best mobile Internet and messaging device in the market.

The phone has built-in support for mobile e-mail that’s easy to set up. But after running the built-in e-mail client for the first time, I decided I liked GMail for mobile application more so I proceeded to install and use it instead. The Gmail application is not only easy to set up and use, it allows you to manage multiple GMail accounts as well as e-mails run by Google Apps for Business.

While the built-in browser does the job, I always prefer Opera Mini and so proceeded to download and use it for the entire run of the test.

I also installed Fring, an application that allows you to connect to your IM and VOIP accounts, including GTalk, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype and several others.

These three—GMail for mobile application, Opera Mini and Fring—comprise my troika of essential digital mobile applications and with the E71, I have all the things I need to be truly on the go.

Surfing the mobile Web in Siquijor, Dumaguete

Max Limpag — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 20:20:09 +0000

I WAS bewitched by Elaine Page in the middle of the night in enchanting Siquijor Island.

Bothered by the grumbling of my stomach because I skipped dinner to catch up on sleep, I woke up bewildered at midnight.

It took me a minute to realize how I ended up where I was last Friday midnight—on a strange bed in an unfamiliar room at the center of Siquijor town in mystical Siquijor Island. I was invited by Smart to test the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network it deployed late last year in Siquijor and Dumaguete City.

There are places where it would be fun to find yourself in at midnight. Siquijor is not one of them.

After a quick bite in what I suspect was the only open store at that time in the island—a Park ‘N Go bakery—I made of to explore the town. But less than a block on, I realized no one was up. And knowing where I was, I wasn’t so sure I’d be excited to see someone up that late.

REAL MEN USE PINK LAPTOPS. Smart engineer Ronan Garcia (left) checks the Smart Bro Plugit configuration in my wife’s hot pink laptop during a demonstration of the capability of Smart’s HSPA network in Siquijor, Siquijor. Although I found forum posts on how to make the Smart Bro Plugit USB modem work in Linux, I decided to suffer the ignominy of using a Windows laptop—and a pink one at that—because I didn’t want to deal with hardware issues on the field.

So I went back to my room, turned on the laptop, plugged in the Smart Bro USB modem and continued to follow the current Internet meme du jour—Susan Boyle and her performance in Britain’s Got Talent.

I watched videos of her stories and interviews on various US TV networks in news website as well as in YouTube. It was then that I recalled my mental note to check Elaine Paige on YouTube. Boyle, when interviewed by Simon Cowell, said she dreamt of being as successful as Paige.

I watched Elaine Paige sing “Memory” and was instantly captivated. Listening to her in the dead of the night in the halcyon town of Siquijor is nothing short of haunting.

It helped that my Internet connection was fast and the videos were loading as quickly as these were playing. A quick test at Speedtest.net indicated my connection was at the .5mbps level. The connection in Siquijor, Siquijor was so fast that earlier that night, Smart engineer Ronan Garcia had the moxie to load and play two YouTube videos at a time without the browser having to pause to buffer data.

Ronan was showing off. Earlier that day, however, he was perspiring profusely when, while showing me how fast the network was, the YouTube video he loaded stalled several times to buffer data. The videos would play but you needed to pause it first to let the browser buffer data for smooth playing.

It wasn’t that slow for me although to provide context, let me state that I surfed extensively even during the time of dial-up connections. I am more patient with these things.

Later, however, connection was cut off. I was told, after Ronan talked to some colleagues the day after, that the problem involved the network outside Siquijor and that even those in Dumaguete City encountered disruptions.

When this was fixed, however, I was surfing at high speeds. The HSPA signal covers a large part of the town, including several beach resorts a few kilometers from the town center. I told Ronan that if you make a living blogging or running websites, you could just relocate to Siquijor with the high-speed HSPA Internet access and a local Western Union branch to claim your Google AdSense earnings.

But apart from accessing the HSPA network in Siquijor through a laptop, I was also making use of the mobile broadband connection through a Nokia N96 unit. I continually browsed the mobile Web, checked my e-mail, posted tweets and even photos through TwitPic.

In Dumaguete City, I continued surfing at high-speed through the Smart HSPA network in the city. The signal covers the downtown area and the airport and its surroundings.

And while waiting for my order at the iconic Sans Rival Cakes and Pastries in The Boulevard in Dumaguete City, one mental image kept flashing in my head as if seared into my consciousness. In that picture, I was on a lounging chair, running my network of sites from the shores of one of Siquijor’s immaculate beaches.